Nocturnes
by catcorsair
Summary: An anthology of short fiction in the Phantom of the Opera Universe. *JUST UPDATED 2/28* No. 3: SAINT VALENTINE: The mob descends on the little cottage beyond the lake, as Christine says goodbye. Post Leroux Canon. TW's for dark themes, consent, violence. 3K
1. Nocturnes No 1: BROKEN THINGS

The word nocturne refers to a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Nocturnes is my latest project, an anthology of short fiction in the Phantom of the Opera Universe. Ratings range from General to Explicit. Individual ratings and warnings preclude each entry.

**Table of Contents:**

Chapter 1) **BROKEN THINGS:** Seeking to appease her own confusing desire and his, Christine attempts to seduce her Angel, and must come to terms with the true price of obsession. E/C. Leroux Canon Insert. Very Explicit. Fluff. 9K

Chapter 2) **A CHIVALROUS MAN**: After the disastrous encounter in the Bois, Raoul follows Christine's carriage back to the Opera, and sees something he never wanted to see. E/C, R/C. Leroux Canon Insert. Very explicit sexual content. TW's for very dubious consent, violence, and voyeurism. 6K

*Chapter 3) **SAINT VALENTINE**: The mob descends on the little cottage beyond the lake, as Christine says goodbye. E/C. Post Leroux Canon. TW's for dark themes, consent, violence. 3K

*new story added Feb. 28*

* * *

_**Broken Things **by __catcorsair_

_Seeking to appease her own confusing desire and his, Christine attempts to seduce her Angel, and must come to terms with the true price of obsession. _ _Leroux Canon Insert. Very Explicit. Soft fluff, and just a tiny bit sad, plot. No additional warnings apply._

_**Dedicated to my dear friend Lillian, for always believing in the best of my Eriks.**_

* * *

They often spent the evenings in silence.

For nearly two hours now, since dinner, when Christine had shyly washed the dishes in the sink and planted them in his waiting hands to return to their corners within the great glass cabinet and the faded pantry, she had sat aside the Angel by the hearth as was their nightly custom, each in their own oversized leather chair, in near-perfect silence punctuated only by their breaths, the gentle, steady crackling of the slowly-dying fire hissing in the grate, and the soft slip of pages turning.

Tonight, it was torture.

Almost thirty minutes ago, Christine had cast her embroidery aside, clasped her fists in her lap, and in a preoccupied measure born of desperation, fixed her gaze into the dancing flames. Now her eyes stung and watered from the heat; her heartbeat, once steady, had reached a pounding tumult in her chest.

Beside her, oblivious to her extended agitation, Erik turned another page and gave a low sound of assent for something he had read; trying to ignore the shudder the intimate utterance had ignited in her, Christine bit into her bottom lip and dug her fingernails into her trembling thigh.

Now. It would have to be now, or never at all.

In an abrupt rustling of skirts, she stood, swiftly enough to capture her companion's eye; Erik blinked up at her from behind his dark mask, his book spread across his thighs, and said, stupidly, with an air that would have made Christine burst out in laughter if her mind were not otherwise occupied with more licentious things, "oh, is it late?" He sounded mildly disappointed as he added, "are you going to bed?"

She could manage no reply, causing his captivating eyes to narrow curiously behind their leather shroud, and his thin, broken lip to purse. With another deliberate sweep of her skirts that spoke to her resolve, and a heady, lingering exhale, Christine turned to him, and closing the distance between their chairs in a step, she dropped herself––with far less grace than she had hoped for––onto her knees in front of the Angel.

"Erik," she started, smarting from the clumsy landing. She took a long, somewhat-shuddering intake of breath, at the strange, unguarded look he gave her. "Erik, I––"

His hand lifted from the book in his lap as if he meant to stroke her cheek; instead he drew back at the last moment, floating his long fingers just far enough above her skin that she could feel the electricity radiating from his almost-touch. "My love," he breathed, gazing down at her as she pressed her mouth to his waiting palm, the barest whine slipping between her parted lips as flesh met flesh in that tactile consummation. His eyes closed as the pad of his thumb traced her jaw; when he opened them again, Christine noticed, the whites were shining and wet. "Goodnight, then."

"I am not tired!" Christine stammered, overloud, fully aware of how childish the words sounded on her lips.

Now she took up his hesitant palm in both of hers, and returned it to her lips, as Erik muttered, watching her pursed mouth brush over his splayed, rigid fingers, "Christine––what are you––"

"Let me," she told him, working to keep the tremor from showing in her throat. "Please, Erik… I fear that I am going mad."

It was true. Ten nights with her Angel, spent in silence by the hearth. How many times had he caught her eye, just so, flooding her cheeks and ears with hot, demanding blood? And how many times, in the private loneliness of the elegant bedroom he had prepared for her, had she whispered his strange name into her pillow, and imagined his spellbinding form silhouetted in her doorway?

But Erik appeared to misunderstand the meaning of her words. Now he cast upon her a look of abject horror and stammered, "I have driven you mad?"

She fixed her gaze to his lap. "A sort of madness, yes––" Blushing fiercely, she added, "surely you see my meaning, Erik!"

He swallowed, loudly, lips tightly drawn over his teeth as he stared at her without blinking, watching her glide her closed mouth over the lines of his palm in the most intimate touch they had so-far engaged in. When she parted her lips to press his index finger inside, curling her tongue about it as she sucked the cold flesh, warming him in her heat, he gave a low, suggestive groan, and tore his hand from her grasp. In the flickering firelight, her spit shone orange against his pale skin.

"Christine, you do not understand what you do––" he managed, staring at the wet mark on his finger, as Christine licked her bottom lip, missing the salt-taste of him on her tongue.

"I understand perfectly, Erik," she said, meeting his clouded gaze. "Do you?"

Now, despite his ignored utterances in protest, she took up the book from his lap––he raised his free hand from its cover when her fingers met its leather spine––to place the large volume, gingerly, on the floor to her side. As Erik sucked in a breath, pursing his thin lips into a tight line, Christine placed both palms on his thighs, and on a shuddering exhale she hoped would not reveal her nervousness, slid her hands heavily up his legs toward the crux of him.

"Oh, I––" he stammered, "_ ah––" _

He was already stiff, that forbidden, erotic rod easily discernible beneath the tenting of his fine trousers, and the idea excited her: that so simple an act on her part could affect him so. She had long suspected––at least, since he had revealed himself to her as a man and ferried her beneath the Opera, to hide her away in his subterranean home––that he had desired her. And surely he did; how could she mistake such an indication as this?

When her thumbs slid into the crease where the hot promise of his sex met thigh beneath the heavy fabric, she raised her chin, biting her bottom lip to steady her trembling, and capturing his unreadable, nerveless stare, she breathed, "do you want me to keep going, Erik?"

His fingernails dug into the cushion at either of his sides. He swallowed, shook his head rigidly. "Christine," he said gently, after several moments spent looking down at her, as Christine swept the pads of her thumbs against the sides of his stiffening shaft, biting back her own unfamiliar desire, "you do not need to… this is not why I brought you here…"

It was not the response she had anticipated. Now her palm swept over his sex, cupping him in a hand; Christine could feel him hardening to full potency beneath her trepidatious touch, see the bulge of him, tautening his trousers to bursting. As he stared at her, unblinking, she curled her fingers, carefully, about his unmistakable length, squeezing just enough to force his closed-mouthed groan and his jaw to quiver, as she whispered, "but I want to see you, Erik––"

And then he coughed, and took up her groping palm in both of his, raising it from his groin to hold imprisoned in the air between them, even as his cock twitched in his trousers below, seeking the warm promise of her lost touch. "I would never ask this of you, Christine," he said brusquely, and she wondered why he looked as if he might cry. "Never. Sweet girl––you do not understand. I am not clean. There have been others…this––no, I am not worthy of this. Not from you."

But she could not accept such a disparaged response. Her body knew what it must do; now, as if her mouth had a mind all its own, Christine felt herself lowering, kissing the tip of his hot cock where its dampness fought his trousers, even as he held her fingers captive in his sweating fist. She heard his weakened, breathy groan above her, sensed his erratic heartbeat, his heaving chest as, lowering her mouth again to brush him, she whispered, "Erik, I cannot fault you for taking lovers––"

"They were not lovers, Christine," Erik returned on an exhale, too-harshly, in the voice that often burst from him in in moments of anger, when his words took on an air that made Christine feel as if he found her stupid, naive. Then, meeting her wounded gaze, he added softly, "Christine, I am a weak man. I have done things––"

She was used to his self-hatred, his distrust of himself, his shame. "Please. Don't," she breathed, "not now… Erik, I want to do it. I want to touch you." Then, resolute: "give me back my hands."

He did.

Erik gasped when her fingers met his trouser-buttons; as she freed his hot length from its cloth prison his teeth drove into his bottom lip. His breath seemed to cease entirely as she exposed him fully her to gaze, her touch; now, staring down at his own nakedness, the open-mouthed woman hovering above his sex, he rasped out, "Christine, you mustn't––"

His cock was magnificent; exactly what she might have seen in her more lascivious visions, on one of her longer, darker nights; and yet she was unprepared for its majesty: straight as a statue, long, thick, and bloodied, it's hot, red tip peeking out from the embrace of his tautened foreskin. In a cruel, biting irony, Christine realized it's beauty must have felt a torture to him. She was sure he would have traded anything for his face to be regarded by a woman so. "Will you let me give you this?" she asked him, needing his reply, her breath tickling the soft hairs nestled about his sex.

He nodded, chin jerking rigidly as he glared down at her, his expression so severe it appeared almost angry. "_ Yes _," he spluttered out, acridly, then, on a shuddering, breathy moan, as she ran a fingertip up the underside of his shaft: "oh, no, no, no Christine, I am not worthy of it––oh, _fuck–– _"

When her lips brushed the tip of him, pink and shining and twitching, he groaned, almost-obscenely; as if all the air had gone from him, every muscle in his body seemed to slacken against the cushion at the intimate touch. It excited her to have brought about such a reaction in him, to have shattered his normally-stoic indifference, his chilly reservation, as his fingers curled meaningfully around the edge of the chair cushions, and his legs parted mindlessly to allow her closer. Christine dragged a palm over his heated thigh, kissing the bright pink mouth of his cock-head, suckling it, sliding her tongue over the flesh; her tongue slid beneath his tautened foreskin to tease the swollen tip of him and he sputtered, wide yellow eyes filled with water as they met hers down the rigid line of his torso, "Christine––Angel, please––"

Now an answering heat, a delicious, distracting awareness––exotic and yet, not without meaning––pooled between her thighs, as Christine drew her mouth down the impressive length of her maestro's shaft, thrilling in each helpless whimper her actions drew from his pinched-tight lips. She had taken up his heat with her fingers, and now as she kissed him, suckled him, traced his swollen veins with her tongue, she squeezed him too, just tightly enough to feel him there in her fingers, to know the hot mass of _him _was held in her hand. She noticed his scrotum was rising, the loose skin no longer hanging but tautened, smooth, as the ugly thing, half-buried at the crux of him, appeared to twitch and swell against his shaft; curious to what the action might inspire in her Angel, she stroked his eager cock in her surrounding fist, using his own moisture to ease her motion, up and down and up again, taking care to slip her fingertips against his tip, then bent and spread her lips wide to capture one testicle in the hot welcome of her mouth.

He groaned then, a carnal, feral sound, and bucked his hips against her full cheeks, throwing his legs open wide; when Christine released him from her mouth, licking her own spit from his soft scrotum-skin, his sweating palm came up to touch her cheek, to drag his mucid fingertips, trembling, over her skin. Christine noticed the water shining in his rabbit's eyes had overflowed and spilled, staining the black leather of his mask; he was crying, she knew, and though she could easily understand why, she did not want to think on it, for the knowing was much too painful. And so Christine stroked the rod of him, keeping his watery stare, as she traced the smooth seam up his length, dragging her tongue from testicles to tip.

It was such an easy thing, after all, to give him this.

He stank, only slightly; that musky, salted smell of man, erotic and forbidden, that in some men––like the opera's stagehands, leering at her from the flys and pressing their hot bodies too-close against hers as she passed behind the curtain, like the stable-boy, whose touch of her hand lasted one moment too long, whose eyes shone bright with something darker than friendship––felt like more of a threat than an allure. And yet, in Erik, the scent was erotic, seductive, honest; the odor of a man, wanting a woman.

Her maestro, her Angel; wanting her.

"Christine, you don't have to continue if you don't want to––" he forced out above her, hissing from between occluded teeth. He was watching her through his sparse eyelashes, staring down the leather arch of his false nose at her as she stroked his shaft, kissed it; adamant in her ignorance of his continued protestations, Christine opened her mouth wide, and watching his eyes widen behind the dark holes of his mask, she took the whole of his cock between her lips.

She wasn't sure what she had expected him to taste like. Like his man's smell, it was something she could not have imagined in her mind, yet suited him just the same. The taste was sensual, sincere––dirty, carnal, like the crush of a crowded street but sweeter. She savored him, the voluptuousness of _him, _in her nose and on her tongue.

"How can you bear it?" he said now, and Christine lamented that persistent insecurity in his beautiful voice, the pain, the stark, cruel disbelief: the unbearable evidence of his own self-doubt. It was as if he expected at any moment that she might scream, run, turn on him for what she did; circling his shaft in her small fist she dragged his length from the hot embrace of her mouth and raised her face to meet his, her stomach dropping at the expression of terror he wore. Terror, but underneath that, such passion, such desire––

"Erik," she breathed, spluttering from the drool that had pooled in the corners of her mouth. "Erik, there is nothing to bear. Do you not trust that I want you?"

"I cannot trust it," he said softly, glancing past her towards the fire. His cock pulsed and throbbed in her squeezing fist; when Christine brought her mouth again to enclose him, circling his tip with the fat of her tongue, he coughed and violently jerked into her embrace. His sudden movement thrust the length of him deep into her throat; in surprise, she retched against him, swallowing her own saliva, the sticky moisture from his tip, but before she had a chance to recover, he had captured her about either side of her face and drawn her carefully from him. Drool clung to her lips, her saliva pulling in sticky strings; his shaft shone slick and ruddy with her spit.

"Erik, let me––" she complained, reaching for him; but he was already attempting to close his trousers, blocking her attentions with a palm. She gave a small cry when, distractedly, he struck her flailing wrist.

"Please, Christine. I cannot suffer you this," he said miserably, meeting her eye for only an instant before his gaze darted to the floor: an apology, she knew. It was not the first time he had accidentally hurt her, and it would not be the last. "Thank you. Truly. But you owe me nothing. I will never seek to claim it of you, I promise you that. The music––I gave what I gave, freely."

Shame burned behind her ears, nauseating and consuming her. What was she doing? This was not like her, to throw herself at a man, even this one, for whom such human labels felt incorrect; he could not be constrained by them. She flattened her palms to the carpet at either side of his feet, and fixed her too-bright stare to the tops of Erik's stiff knees.

"Are you angry with me?" she said to the floor. He sighed.

She could not contain her whimpering moan when his palm stroked over her hair in a silent reply. At the suggestive sound, she sensed his body stiffen; beneath her, his half-concealed cock twitched in the folds of his fly. Feeling her body's response to his touch, her nipples tightening beneath her bodice, her belly warming and stirring in excitement, she dragged a hand again up his tensed leg, over the calf and behind the knee. When she again reached his groin he did not stop her, though she felt the clamminess of his palm still pressed against her cheek; now, because he had not stopped her doing so, Christine busied at his fly with both fingers, again freeing his still-eager length from the rushed cover of his trousers. Pearly liquid pooled at the tip of him, dribbling down the curve of his cock-head to disappear within the fine dark curls crowning his sex; in the secret place between her thighs, Christine felt her body do the same.

"Erik, please," she began, unable to meet his eye as she carefully palmed his shaft, sensing every tremor, every twitch in his body as his hips eased into her touch. "_ Please, _" she told him earnestly, trying to hide the fearful shame in her tone as she held him now with both hands, as if his cock were an idol that she prayed to, prostrate on her knees like a sinner before his altar, "do not make me beg to please you!" She could feel the tears stinging in her eyes as she finally raised her chin to meet his stare. "Do not make me _ask _to touch your cock!"

"_ Christine! _" he returned, shocked still. He looked mildly affronted at her behavior, and Christine might have laughed at the absurdity of the situation, had she not held the man's dripping length in her slack fist; had she not hungered for him, for it, in the slick warmth hidden beneath her skirts.

Instead, with new determination, she drew her fist up his still-swollen shaft, forcing his shuddering groan; his long fingers curled about her grip, her wrist, impeding her movement and shepherding her just the same. "Erik, do you want this?" she said seriously, pumping him with the meek guidance of his own hand, as his gaze bore into hers, darkened, hidden, intense, "I do not mean to force you into something––"

Could she have been wrong? He had never touched her with any kind of intimacy, never asked or demanded anything of her, it was true; was it possible that he truly only desired to mould her voice? That when he told her he loved her, he meant it as a friend, as her teacher––

By God, was his intention fatherly after all?

She loosed her grip about him, staring down at her spread fingers, as her cheeks burned with something she knew she could never take back.

What a fool he must think of her! She might have ruined everything with this one moment of crazed weakness. Why could she not control herself around him? He would surely regret ever taking her on as his pupil now––

But Erik said above her, rescuing her from her spiraling shame, "of course I want this, Christine. By God, I want you––I want you so badly. I want you so badly that it always just feels like screaming in here––" he tapped a finger to his temple, twice and too-hard, the sound strange and hollow against the unyeilding leather of the mask. On a sigh, he lowered his gaze to Christine, still bent between his legs, her fingers spread and gripping at his thighs, as his cock bobbed, searching, wanting, by her chin. She could feel the heat of it against her skin; now, hearing his confession, knowing his desire, she thrust out her tongue to again trace its full length.

He managed a ragged exhale as she breathed the words between kisses against the root of him: "then please, Erik, let me. I need this––I want you too––" When he rocked his hips toward her trailing mouth she added, moaning softly, airily, such that her breath stirred in his soft curls, "I want to taste you, I want to know what you feel like inside––"

"Christine, this––" he muttered, but the look he gave her was one of ravening desire; even behind the black shroud of his mask, Christine could see that he wanted her. It was almost frightening, that all-consuming gaze; his hands were shaking against the cushions.

"Erik, please," she hissed again, staring at him up the line of his erect cock as it rubbed against her chin, "_ please!" _and as soon as she had said the word, his hand was at the base of her throat, dragging her forward; she opened her mouth, ready, wanting, and when she again tasted him on her tongue, she groaned atop the length of his hot shaft.

Without a word he forced her down upon him, too-hard, hard enough to set Christine's heart to racing, and still he did not relent; smothering her lips in his wet curls as he pushed her, groaning mindlessly, onto his cock: no, it wasn't what she wanted, no, but if he needed this, if he needed it to be this way––

She sputtered, gagged against his full length, buried, too-deep in her open, unprepared throat; she felt herself begin to retch, felt the heaving violence building in her chest, and still he held her there, his palm rigid at the base of her skull, as he thrust his hips further within her, fucking her unresisting face, once, twice, once more––

"Oh, fuck––" she heard him groan above her, the crude syllables drawn out and labored, "fuck. Fuck––"

Christine tried to relax her muscles against his assault; she slackened her jaw, let her mouth hang open. Let her throat become a passage for him as he drove himself inside. He was using her, she knew; fucking a hole instead of a woman, and she let him, knowing that it was likely the only way he knew how. It was as if he thought that should he release her, she would be gone. That if he did not bind her there to him, on him, and him inside her, by his fingers tangled in her hair, she would vanish, run screaming from between his thighs: like so many truths she had come to learn about him, Christine could not bear the horror of the understanding.

And so in agony she received him, all of him, again and again and again. His hips beat against her, pounding into her captured face as he grunted above, tangling his fingers, cruelly, in her yellow hair; and then, just when Christine could take no more, just when her lungs had begun to scream for lack of air, her jaw to sear at the width of him, and her cheeks to burn with the salted sting of her tears as she wondered if she would die, he dragged her from him with an obscene pop.

"Christine, oh God––" he breathed, staring down at her in horror as drool pooled and sputtered from her lips, to stain his trouser legs as she panted over him, coughing and retching, digging her fingernails into his thighs. She felt his cool fingertips anxiously brush her cheek, pad her throat, her wet lower lip, as he added in a ragged whisper, "oh, oh no––I knew I should not have let it get this far. Do you understand now? Do you see? Christine, Christine––Erik is not a good man, Erik is not good––" His eyes were shut tight behind the mask; now they opened, as he breathed, "my love, what have I done?"

Christine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, gazing into his anguished, arduous expression, "Erik, has a woman run from you before?"

"Yes," he admitted, after a pause. The way his eyes darted past her to the wall told her not to press his answer. Meeting her stare again, he added, "won't you?"

She knew she could not convince him with her words; Christine had never been much for attractive speech. But she was pure of heart and kind of manner, and this, she could show him: this, she could make him understand. Now, though her throat still burned with his recent abandon, though the taste of blood teased at the back of her tongue, she pressed her lips again to the sodden tip of him, still bobbing there, nervous and wanting and ready between them, and as the shudder racked his entire frame, she whispered through lips that brushed his length, delicately, carefully, "I will never run. Never, Erik."

His voice cracked as he answered, clawing his fingernails into the armrests of his chair and easing his hips into her touch, "no matter what?"

"No matter what," echoed Christine, as she again took hold of his shaft in one hand, and eased her head down the length of him, swallowing him whole, until her lips met the wrap of her fist, and he groaned, bodily, enticingly in her touch.

When this man finally took her, she knew, it would be passionate, raw; nothing like the same sweetly-nervous manner with which Raoul had first slid his fingers inside her, back in their youth on the moors. She had felt no pleasure in those timid touches, save for the excitement of giving Raoul a part of herself that no other man had shared before, and yet she gave it gladly. She had caressed his bare thighs, trailed her fingers between his legs and up his shaft, even as he pumped the pink flesh in his own fist; and when he stroked himself to completion, Christine recalled giggling at the wash of fluid that spilled in the grass beneath them, staining the violets about her bare knees white. Raoul had never tried to enter her, not then, but even now, everytime she felt his soft, apprehensive touch on her hand or on her cheek in her dressing-room and the shadowed passageways of the Opera, she remembered the feel of his hot, nervous fingers inside.

Erik was no Raoul. When he took her, it would not be child's play.

But it did not have to hurt. She did not want to think on what her Angel's self-loathing reticence, his dangerous urgency proclaimed; had he ever forced a woman, before? Had he ever, in a rage of lust and anger––the sort of insane, devouring passion that she had sensed in him the night she first saw his horrible face, that she had just sensed in him now––lost control?

She had felt the threat in the hardness of him pressing at her stomach as he pushed her up against the living-room wall with his fingers wrapped about her throat, his black mask still dangling from her own. She had felt it in his other hand dragging over her abdomen, her hips, the fingers that curled in her skirts, raising them just enough for her to feel the cold subterranean air on her stockinged ankles, in the heat of his tongue against her flesh as his mouth opened over her straining jaw––but he had released her.

Just as she wanted to believe he had released them all.

And did it matter? Whoever he had been before Christine, he was someone entirely different now. She could see it in the look he gave her over his paper in the morning, how he left a cup of tea for her, brewed just so, on the table aside her favorite chair at night.

But she could still sense something darker underneath, like a living thing submerged in still, dark water, in his lingering, too-tight hold on her wrist, when she left him in the evenings for bed. How she found him waiting just outside her bedroom door, his expression clouded, almost cruel, when she unlocked it before breakfast.

He never looked as if he had slept.

She had always known, in a part of her that feared the truth, that murder could not be the worst of his crimes, if only for the ease with which he discussed it. But could she hold him to the standards of the rest of humanity, if humanity had abandoned him to a life such as this?

Was it love? She could not say. She did not know. It was passion, desire, gratitude. It was companionship.

It was hunger.

And this, this––her flesh––she could allow him to devour. She could feed him. And she could treat him as a man. She expected very few had done the same.

Now she told him, squaring her jaw as she met the fire in that yellow stare with her own, "Erik, please. It does not have to be rough. It does not have to be the only time. I am not going to run."

"I do not know any other way, Christine," he said simply, miserably, "I have never––not with someone who _wanted––" _

"Until now, Erik. _I _want. Let me do this for you, my way. Let me share this with you––" Again she wrapped her fingers, gently, about his shaft; a question. "Do you trust me?

She could hardly hear his reply over the pounding of her own heart.

"I want to."

But it was all the permission she needed. Urgently, almost in fear of her own hunger for doing so, she took him up again, quickly returning her fist to its rhythmic stroking of him, swallowing the whole of him as he sagged against the cushions. His body was ready: his mouth fell open, his head back, as his long fingers flailed about the sides of her working face, her hair, her throat, as if he were desperate to touch and at the same time afraid. When his hand finally settled against the curve of her collarbone, Christine moaned atop his length, if only for the sheer release, the relief the touch brought; as if in answer, he moaned bodily overtop, and Christine felt the gentle writhing of his hips beneath her as he eased his length deeper into her throat.

This time, she was ready.

As she sucked at him, harder, deeper pulls to his engorged length, she felt as if she drew something from him: that in each tightening of her cheeks, each pump of her fist, each wet lap of her curled tongue, she sucked the ruin from within him. And now it was only a mission, with which she gave her everything: she would draw it out, draw the sick out, and swallow it inside herself, where he could never find it again––

Above her, he was flailing, sputtering, surrendering, "ah––oh, my God, _fuck–– _"

She could feel him trembling beneath her; every muscle in his thighs, abdomen, arms, tautened and straining. His long fingers were splayed against his thighs. His testicles had fixed themselves to the pulsating base of his cock; he was ready, he was coming, he was going to give himself to her, give it all, fill her, fill her, and she would consume him––

And then his hands were in her hair, and he was guiding her head from his shaft; with a remarkable degree of reserve considering his recent abandon, he said, causing Christine to blush between his thighs, "we should stop this now, my love, I think…before you or I engage in something we will regret. Before I take something from you you do not wish me to."

She peered up at him from between his spread and tensed legs. Creamy liquid spilled down the length of his throbbing shaft, only a precursor to what Christine knew must follow. "But you haven't––"

"I don't need to," he countered, gently. "I shouldn't… it is far more than I deserved, Christine."

She knew she was pouting up at him like a child, pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose, even as his pre-seed clung to her chin. "Have I done something wrong?"

"You are not capable of wrongdoing, my love." He sighed, and the sound came raw, rasping. "But I am… right now, I truly am. I will not be able to stop myself. I should never have let this get so far. You are nearly impossible for me to resist, Christine, and I must."

"Why?"

He threw a pale hand over his eyes. "Because Erik will not make a whore of you!" he spat, adding in a low voice, "a victim…" As the hand fell again to the cushion, limp, he met her questioning stare and groaned, "oh, I am so sorry––"

Now, squaring her chin, Christine demanded: "what is it that you want from me, Erik?"

"What do I want?" he hissed, "Christine, I want everything. I want it all. I want your music, your voice, your soul––you know this––I want your devotion, your servitude, your worship."

Yes, she knew––and yet, these words, these once-unspoken truths, laid bare so, were too much; Christine could never have prepared herself to hear them. Her hand came up to press against her trembling lip as she muttered, her determined resolve crumbling in the wake of his speech just as it had so many times before, "Erik––I––I give it, freely––"

But he continued, glaring down at the kneeling woman at his feet, his fingernails slowly digging into his thighs until Christine was sure they would draw blood, "No. You do not understand. I want what Erik can never have––I want the touch of your hand, Christine, the smell of your hair. I want to wash your naked body in the bath, I want to feel the warmth of you, by my side, in a carriage on a snowy night––"

"Oh, Erik––" she sighed, breathless, but he had fixed upon her a look of consuming agony.

"And I want your cunt, Christine. By God, I want your pretty, wet, virgin cunt. You must have known. I want to take you, right now, to tear your skirts and panties, to fuck you against that carpet until you scream for me––"

"_ Erik! _" she protested, because she knew she must––but the words had awoken something wild, stoking the flame inside of her; without thinking, she slid a hand beneath her skirts, seeking the ache between her thighs. Rising high on her knees, she arched her bottom into the air, to slip two fingers inside herself, feeling the moisture pool at her entrance and spill over and down the back of her hand at the invasion; now, digging her fingertips into his rigid thigh, she drove the fingers in, in, again, cutting her bottom lip with her teeth as she stared into the glowing pits of her Angel's wide eyes.

His hand reached out to capture her about her throat, just under her jaw, lacking the intention of injury but forcing her shuddering moan all the same, as he continued, his siren's voice rough, ragged, "Christine, I want to spread your thighs and drink up your pretty puss like a piece of ripe fruit. I want to feel your juices drip down my chin––"

"Oh, God," she muttered, her words coming breathless and rasping in the embrace of his fist as she pounded her slick fingers inside herself; it was maddening, these words the Angel spoke, intoxicating––

And she needed more. Erik glared as she took up his cock in her fist, even as she worked between her thighs, watching her pump it once, twice, before bending low to again swallow it, sloppily, wetly, between her lips, thrusting the whole of it into her throat. She drew her mouth up his shaft, over and over, moaning against his hot flesh, as her fingers toyed with her swollen clit in the bundled mass of her skirts; again, again, she sucked him, in a steady rhythm, in time with his thrusting hips, his fingers slowly clawing their way back into her hair and behind her throat. "Fuck, fuck––oh, fuck––" he was repeating, his pretty words having dissolved into grunting nonsense, as Christine moaned his own name on his ready cock, "_ fuck–– _" tasting his man's-taste, his salted pre-seed that pooled in her cheeks and spilled out over his shaft to wet his trousers, his curls. Christine tore her fingers from her own sex to grope at his scrotum, to work his again-rising testicles in her fist, her fingers sticky with spit and semen and her own milky juices, as Erik groaned bodily above her, and then, as she met his haggared gaze, feeling the water spilling down her cheeks and the heat burning her ears, she said, not knowing what it was she begged for, her words soaked and dripping wet with him:

"Erik, _please! _"

And now he was chanting above her, his glare still capturing hers, consuming hers, "I want to put my fingers inside you, my cock, my arm. I want you to swallow me whole, Christine. I want to live inside you––_ fuck _––" He groaned, and the sound was filthy, feral: "oh, God, yes, _fuck, _Christine––I'm going to––Erik is––"

"Do it, Erik," she breathed, "all of it. Do it––"

He stared at her as if he could not believe the words he had just heard, though Christine could hardly trust them herself. And yet a fire was burning within her, searing, tearing flames consuming her thoughts, until nothing remained but the man before her; and such emptiness was utter bliss––

She knew that he was repulsive. She knew that he had killed.

And she knew that he loved her.

She did not need to know anything else.

"Please––" she repeated, as she released him from her fist; now, senselessly, her mouth still working at his shaft, bobbing against him, suckling his fullness between her straining cheeks, she was blindly pulling up her skirts, bunching the fabric in her arms as she showed him her red knees, the tops of her stockings, the bare strip of her thigh. The cold air tingled against the exposed flesh of her rump, chilled the wet slickness between her legs. She wore no panties––she rarely did––

As soon as she had shown him the dark thatch of her cunt he had his hands on either side of her face, tearing her from his angry, throbbing, ready shaft, too-roughly and yet not roughly enough, as Christine gave a shuddering groan at his aggressive resolve. Still holding her skirts up about her waist, she panted before him, meeting his stare, presenting herself to his numb consideration, his frozen expression as if she gave herself is a gift. And so she was: she spread her legs, just enough, such that he could see her lips opening, see the barest tease of her inner parts, slick and shining with milk-white moisture; creamy liquid tickled her skin as it tracked the length of her inner thigh. _Use me, _she was telling him, _lose yourself in me! _His eyes were manic, frightening, sublime, as he almost-shouted, striking his own thigh with a tense fist, "come, girl! Climb atop me, Christine–– _now! _"

She stumbled over her tangled skirts, chest heaving even as she reached for him; the mania was building in her too just as she knew it ravaged in him. She could not think properly, she could hardly see, save for the purple weapon like a God rising from the Angel's stained trousers, that devouring stare behind the black mask––

"Quickly," he hissed, wrapping his own fingers about his shaft, stroking it once, twice, in his too-tight fist, "_ quickly! _"

"Oh, God," Christine managed, senselessly, as his free had captured her about the bicep. Still holding her skirts, she fumbled into the fierce capture of his grip as he drew her towards him. She climbed him, stumbling, spreading her legs wide about his, even as he directed his cock between her thighs; and still he was staring up at her, and she at him, as if neither of them had the strength to sever the intensity of that connection, as if that connection were all that were keeping them afloat; now, throwing her arms around his neck, covering both their legs in her pile of wrinkled skirts, Christine bore down against him, her panting in even time with his own, such that they were sharing one another's breath. When the hot unknown of his tip slid against her slick folds, she cried out, senseless with the shock of the nameless sensation, and then, as his brow furrowed, causing the mask to shift on his face, Erik rasped, so close to her open, pleading mouth, so close that Christine thought he might kiss her, his cock sliding deeper against her, seeking out her entrance and barely tipping inside, "Christine, my love, tell me now, I must be sure––are you a virgin?"

"Yes!" she breathed, hanging from him and bucking her hips into the promise of his shaft, bidding him enter her, needing to feel him inside her, "yes––oh, God––Erik, I am, but please––"

Suddenly his movements were slowing, as his palm slid about her rear, taking control of her mindlessly rolling hips. She felt his tip at her entrance, barely stretching her as he guided her lower against him and eased himself inside. It hurt, only enough to set a shiver coursing up her spine and spread her mouth wide in a silent "o" of surprise; and then he was staring into her eyes and she into his, as his body tore, slowly, agonizingly slowly into hers, stretching her open and filling her with him. Christine could sense his heartbeat racing, feel his body shaking beneath hers, as his fingertips dug into the fat of her rear, and then both of his hands were on her hips, rounding her ass and dragging up to her waist as he circled her there, guiding her lower, lower, until she felt the wool of his trousers against her inner thighs, until her soft curls brushed against his own straighter, coarser hair. In pain, in lust, and with abandon, Christine cried out, feeling his fullness, the entirety of _him, _heating her core.

The Angel was inside.

"Am I hurting you?" he said, his siren's voice no more than a whisper. His grip at her waist tightened when Christine gave another moan, quieter and more wanting than the last. Terror showed in his expression as he added, "Christine, do not let me hurt you––"

"Oh, Erik––" she breathed, for a lack of an answer, though he seemed to understand her meaning all the same. The pain was swept from his expression as he slowly moved his hips beneath her seated form, pushing himself further within, "oh, Angel––"

She could hear the slickness between them, echoing against their bodies with every ebb of his body into hers, every flow as she received him; and Christine felt it too, like burning liquid, like hot syrup pooling between her thighs and spilling into the dark hair at the base of him, hidden deep within her. Curious, Christine pushed her skirts to her belly with one hand, wanting, needing to see the Angel inside of her––his possession of her, final, resolute––

Her answer, finally given. The choice, finally made.

"I didn't know a woman could get so wet, Christine," Erik said, softly, above her, watching her watch his claiming of her, his dry lips brushing the frizzy hair crowning her bowed forehead. Still Christine stared at the crush of them, transfixed by the union of their bodies: the soft wet flesh working against soft wet flesh, in some carnal function she had never entirely understood and yet instinctively wanted, desired, needed, from him; his cock, deep-red, swollen, furious, sunk within her and slid out again, milky fluid dripping down its shaft, as her pink lips spread open for each invasion; creamy white spilled over her thigh and into the crease of their conjoined bodies.

His voice cracked as he continued, "I did not realize it were even possible––" Looking up, Christine met his stare and saw his expression change, as something flashed across his features that turned her stomach and made her want to weep; and then it was gone, and his mouth opened wide in a shuddering, "oh, Christine––"

And then she was moving against him, not knowing what she was trying to achieve against his flesh but seeking it all the same, feeling his length slide deeper and pull away from her with her every thrust; she hungered for the ache of him––groaning with each push, delighting in each carnal utterance from her unknowing lips and his––and she hated when he slid away, emptying her of him. She hated being without him. The pain of his entry had deformed into something less tangible, less physical, only wet and hot and burning between her thighs; feeling the crush of his testicles, fat and soft and slick in the cleft of her rear, the erotic scratch of her bare thighs against his damp wool, her small, flat torso against his hollow, trembling one, Christine writhed against him, into him, on him, seeking the sensation of _him _with every breath. Pleasure had begun to tear through her; now his thrusts and hers were more urgent, more ravening, as his cock drove deeper and deeper within––and still Christine wanted more, more––

She flailed at the many buttons of her bodice, even as Erik bounced her, faster, harder against him, grunting his approval at what she was attempting to do, urging her on in his handling of her. Soon she had the fabric torn open, and her liner as well, as she attacked the steel fasteners of her corset; freeing herself with a groan, Erik bowed against her, pushing her hands from her breast with the force of his desire for the buried flesh––she dug them into his disordered scalp, upending and pulling at his dark, sparse hair as he growled against her––

"Erik, _Angel!" _she cried, exciting at the sting of his teeth against her tit. His tongue slid over the exposed pink of her nipple; Christine thrust her breast against him, into his open mouth as he groaned at her eagerness.

"You are my pupil, girl, and I shall be your master," Erik growled, wetly, against her fat flesh, drawing his teeth along the mounding curve of her tit; gripping the edges of her half opened corset, he tore it from her with a ragged grunt that resonated, deep between Christine's thighs. His balls struck fast and rough against her ass with the force of his fucking of her; now Christine cried out, rolling her hips into his ravenous thrusts, taking him deeper, harder, faster inside, as Erik continued, his Angel's voice stained with passion, his every manic syllable making her whine and moan, "I will fuck you every night, Christine. I will fuck you until you are so full of my foul seed that it pours out from all your orifices, that when you speak it is only my cum that forms your words, that when you breathe it will be my cum that blows from your soft, pink lungs. It will pour from your cunt when you walk, it will gush down your thighs and out from your throat when you sing upon my stage, and all men will know how the Phantom has fucked you––took you, owns you––owns you––Christine, oh, God, I need you, all of you––"

But when his hands swept about her throat, capturing her there as he pushed her down upon his cock, harder, harder, such that the straining muscle at the inside of her spread thighs began to ache, gnashing his teeth and glaring into her eyes as he began to squeeze, driving his hard thumbs into the hollow of her throat and stopping her breath, Christine spluttered, "Erik, _no–– _" and coiled her fingers, weakly, into his unrelenting hold.

And then he was sobbing, hot tears pouring down his alien cheeks as he released his killing grip, his fingers, splayed and trembling about her gasping, coughing throat. Sensing him go still within her, sensing his fear, his urge to flee, Christine brought her palms to his black cheeks, stroking the leather flesh, feeling his water spill over her skin, as she murmured, still rolling her hips against his static, tensed body, "Erik, it's all right––it's all right––"

"I'll kill you, in the end, Christine," he breathed, returning her stare, even as water still flowed freely from his wide-open eyes. "I love you, so, so much––"

And then she was kissing him, because she could not fathom another option, another response; kissing him, tasting him, feeling the narrow, pinched sweetness of his trembling mouth against hers. She broke from him only to gauge his expression––numb, blank, staring, but the rush of tears had dried––and then she plunged once more; but now he was ready for her, his lips parting for her prying tongue, and she could taste him inside. Searching, desperate, his ruined mouth opened wide against her own––perfect, pink––as he groaned out her name, and other words, senseless, desperate words that Christine could not hear over the rushing in her ears; and yet she sensed it, sensed his body, contorting and straining beneath her own, sensed the hot, wet fullness of him, spilling out from between the crush of them, as the spasm wracked his torso and thrust him deeper inside. And all the while, he was staring, staring, with water-stained, red-rimmed, glowing yellow eyes, and Christine could not break that stare; and then when it was done, when his chest only trembled against hers, like a butterfly, crushed and dying in her waiting palm, he dropped his head against her shoulder, holding her close by his arms flung about her back in the only embrace he had ever given her, and whispering her name, over and over, into the sweating column of her bruised throat, he began again to cry.

And as she stroked his sweat-dampened hair, sliding her trembling fingers over his malformed skull and down the back of his neck to his sharp, angular spine, its bones jutting out against her palm, she knew that she had betrayed him in this; that her promises had been unkeepable lies, and one day soon, when the world that he had so carefully crafted for the two of them fell apart, and the fantasy crumbled to sand at their feet, she would destroy him with a choice.

And he would lay his claim on her, forever.

But if he needed that, if he needed it to be that way––

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**A/N: **_Thank you for joining me in my newest project! For some time, I have wanted to publish an ongoing anthology of some of my shorter or less dense Phantom of the Opera stories, and so here we are! I write constantly, and have a lot of these that I work on concurrently with larger stories (to clear my mind), so please stay tuned for faster updates. The title is borrowed from a Kazuo Ishiguro anthology of the same name, and of course, the music of Frédéric Chopin. The word Nocturne refers to a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night._

_**Please comment/review! **__Your words feed my soul and make me write faster! I try my best to respond to every one. Also, never be shy about reaching out or prompting me, I am always open to new ideas!_

_Until next time, _

_-Cat_


	2. Nocturnes No 2: A CHIVALROUS MAN

_**A Chivalrous Man**_ _ by catcorsair_

_For the brilliant and kind helloitskrisha, who wanted a voyeuristic blowjob, but probably didn't mean this._

_**Thank you for reading! Please review!**_

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_His valet found [Raoul] in the morning sitting on his bed. He had not undressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that some disaster had occurred._ ––from The Mysterious Brougham, The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux

Though he had fallen to his knees as the carriage passed, now he rose, and for a lack of something more suitable to do in his anguish, the Vicomte de Chagny took off, stumbling, after it. Surely appearing to any of the sparse late-night passersby a haggard creature of more than twice his twenty years, he ambled the quiet midnight avenues of central Paris in its wake like a man possessed.

He had followed the slow, steady _clip clop clip clop _for some time before he noticed the sound––as relentless as the beating of his own heart, thundering its rhythm in his chest, projecting him forward even with his eyes glued to his scuffed shoes––had ceased; now he raised his waterlogged gaze to the familiar, bright facade of the Opera Garnier. He was standing on the Rue Scribe side.

There had been no performance at the grand venue again tonight, coinciding, unignorably, with his dear Christine's ominous absence, and as such the usually-overwhelming streets about the massive structure were eerily silent. Still the quiet sedulousness of the sleeping city echoed about him like the hum of an inescapable orchestra, readying itself in the pit; like cruel, hissing laughter at the Vicomte's helpless plight, as if all of Paris were mocking him for giving his heart to a whore.

Christine Daae. A whore.

Staring up at the formidable spectre of the slumbering building, Raoul, the young Vicomte de Chagny, began again to cry; heaving, exhausted sobs that shook his trim form, as his tears stung at his hairless cheeks and blinded his vision, filling his mouth with their salt.

When the fit had subsided, he gazed upon the towering marble facade before him with raw and stinging eyes, and wished, for the first time in his young life, that he were dead.

How could he live, without _her _?

Soon, sounds coming from the last drainage tunnel on the side of the staggering complex captured his ear, the low, intimate sussuring of lovers in the unmistakable crux of passion, whimpers and sighs and silken-sounding caresses; only another mockery to Raoul's broken heart. He closed his eyes, determined to shut the relentless whispers away, and ignore the visions which crept behind his eyelids––himself, pressing his dishonored Christine's small, seductive body against the smooth, secret stones, just as some man must do to some woman now, as her hands swept his spine in a lover's embrace, and his fingers crawled beneath her skirts––

And then he heard her.

"Please, oh––_ Erik! _"

As if a dagger struck him in the gut, Raoul groped for his own abdomen, buckling over in shock. His hand struck out at the giant marble blocks of the Garnier's facade, and he stumbled, coughing, onto his already-ragged knees.

Again, the sound tormented him, like another strike: "wait, please––did you hear that?"

He would know that Angel's voice anywhere.

"No, no, Christine––" Raoul muttered, and clapped his palm atop his lips. In a frantic motion unbefitting of a man of his stature, he scrambled for the exterior wall just aside the shadowed tunnel, pressing his back against the cool stone, palms flat and sweat-slick on the smooth marble.

And he listened. A rustling of fabric, a scrambling of delicate feet. A gentle splash of water, and a sweet, pretty moan, no more than a whimper––

Then, hurried, breathless: "Erik, no––no! _Wait! _I think someone is out there–– _oh–– _"

There could be no doubt that it was Christine he heard in that tunnel. His own Christine; her sweet, tempting sounds of certain sin, her low, whispered words––

But who was this _Erik? _

Her Maestro, her good genius, _apparently. _What kind of holy Angel took a good girl out for drives on the Bois at this hour? Only to hide her within drainage tunnels, speaking softly enough to her that respectable folks could not hear?

"Oh, oh my _God _––you _beast, _" came her stifled cry, and then a wet splashing, as if Christine had fallen into the trickling water that flowed past his dress shoes to disappear beyond the shadowed grate; she sputtered something that Raoul could not identify, followed by a soft, hollow thud; now shoes were scrambling on wet stone, and heavy fabric swept the pavers. Christine gave another grunt, another, almost like a squeal, and then, as the Vicomte's heartbeat began to thunder in the hollow cavern of his chest, reaching such a throbbing threshold he thought she and her lover must hear its drumbeat in the corridor beyond, all went still, and the man inside the tunnel laughed.

And now Raoul heard him, that _Erik, _that rake, as he spoke in the same, softly hypnotic voice he had heard the night Christine first disappeared, pressing his ear to her dressing room door, if having taken on the barest, breathless rasp, "sweet Christine," the villain whispered, "Why resist? Would you dare do otherwise?"

"Here?" stammered Christine, "Erik, you cannot expect that I might––would you risk my reputation, would you seek to ruin me, so easily?"

"Do you think you have any honor left, my girl?" said the stranger bitterly, and Raoul could make out a decidedly feminine whimper, then an alarming crack, like the sound of a rod striking stone. He winced. "I valued your virtue when I believed you had it," continued Erik, "but seeing the evidence of how you have shared yourself has given me reason to withdraw my own restraint!" Another groan, followed by a grunt, another––masculine and urgent––and then: "damn you, child, you shall obey me!"

"Oh, God forgive me this," whispered Christine, and the words stopped Raoul's breath in his hammering chest, for reasons he could not identify, "I will. I will do it. But please, Erik. Not like this––bring me back down––have it of me there––"

A swish of heavy fabric, another splash, another grunt, and then, as if the man who spoke the words were only growling: "have you not sworn to do as your Angel bids you, child, and only him?"

"Yes, Erik––but––"

"Then open your damned mouth!"

And then she gave a strangled cry, as her companion again laughed darkly, the sound echoing in the stone tunnel like a knife to Raoul's beating heart. Soon a wet sputtering, a suggestive whine, sounded from behind the grate, as he crushed his cheek to the cool stone, straining to hear; and in a low, melodic voice that twisted his stomach to knots, forcing the bile to rise in his throat, the stranger murmured, "yes, that's it, my love––good girl––"

In the pit of him, his organs felt as though they were churning and twisting to hot pulp; his mind reeled, spinning in a too-bright and clouded cacophony, as if he had drunk several glasses of champagne over his limit at on of his brother's more scandalous affairs. He clapped a palm atop his trembling lips to stop the mindless groan that threatened to burst forth from his dry tongue, as new, hot, angry tears streamed down his cheeks, collecting in the fine hairs of his moustache and stinging the tender flesh of his lips.

Damn her for a harlot, a tease! How many men did his perfect, prurient Angel sell herself to, for the honor of that stained stage, as she refused even a single kiss, a measly, innocent dinner, from him!

'The Angel is very strict,' _indeed! _

Now he heard her coughing, wetly, beyond the black grate; as the dark stranger gave a low groan, then a weak, breathy, "_fuck _, yes, girl––"

Oh, surely Christine had been fucking her great _Maestro _all along! The invisible enemy took shape behind Raoul's closed eyelids; a villain, fat of body and crude of manner, he had no doubt about it. An ugly creature, wet-lipped and red-nosed, thrusting his tiny cock inside her every night, with Raoul's own bouquets wilting on her dressing-table!

And he, the snubbed Vicomte, the victim: the pitiable imbecile who once believed in her!

But as much as he hated her, reviled her in that moment, he had to know the truth of it; he had to see. No more dressing room doors, no magic mirrors. Imagining the worst was easy. Perhaps it was not all that it seemed?

He could not believe it of her. Not Christine, not like this––

Raoul darted across the street without glancing at his path; he cursed and shook a gloved fist at a passing carriage after nearly crashing headlong into the flank of its proud-looking Percheron. The occupants of the cabin laughed thoughtlessly––how dare they show joy at a time such as this, when all the world is falling down in pieces!––as dirty water splattered the hems of the Vicomte's ruined trousers.

Splashing across what remained of the street, Raoul planted himself against a morris column in the safety of the pedestrian crossing, with its spinning pictures slowly rotating behind the clouded glass, and squinted into the shrouded drainage tunnel on the Rue Scribe side.

The vestibule was blocked with a sort of grate, almost as if it were a passageway of some sort. Behind it, shadowed in the grid of its bars were two darkened figures, just there, horrible and honest, pressed against the narrow stone walls of the corridor. Even in the dim haze of the flickering street-lamps, Raoul could easily make out their shapes: one, tall, thin, imposing in a dark cloak and top hat, clutching a cane in a tautly-gloved fist, leather fingers coiling with it into the bars, his face, immured in shadow; the other, small, fair, her cloak disheveled across her shoulders as she kneeled, prostrate before her companion as if in prayer, eyes sparkling with reflected water, skirts fanning about her like angel's wings amid the scum of the dirty passageway.

Christine.

And there could be no doubt of what he was seeing. With one palm at the back of her skull, fingers spread wide in her tangle of loosened curls, the tall stranger was guiding the woman Raoul had loved for half a lifetime against his rigid, spread-legged form, bucking his hips against her soft cheeks, as her hands dug into his thighs, and her lips wrapped about his cock in an unthinkable embrace.

Raoul felt the strength drain from his legs; he gripped the iron pedestal to keep himself from falling to the street like a stone, and muttered, "no, no, no no no––"

He had wanted the truth! Now, he had it! He should be glad to have escaped the clutches of that scurrilous prostitute, who gives herself to men in sewers, and on her knees, no less! Damn her, damn her! That conniving bitch, that duplicitous delilah! Blood rushed to his face, heating his ears and boiling his unblinking eyes; if Christine had stood there before him in that moment, he would have struck her filthy mouth, for ever having seduced him like the Salome she clearly was!

But he did nothing.

Because if he listened closely enough, in the silence of the abandoned street, he could just make out the quiet, wet whimpers from her songbird's lying throat, as her _good genius _pushed himself inside.

Raoul gave a yelp as the nail of his middle finger split and tore, leaving a trail of hot, red blood on the morris column. He had been digging his fingers into the cast iron as he gripped the pedestal, watching the only woman he ever loved, ever wanted––and God, how he wanted her!––betray him in exactly the manner he had most feared all along.

Damn her, he would have married her! He would have transformed that dirty swedish street urchin into a Vicomtesse! He offered her everything, everything––and still she chose a stranger's cock in a sewer over _him? _

Philippe had been right. Opera girls were only good for a fuck. Liars and concubines, the lot of them! They were owed nothing more than the scraps of their patrons, paid in transaction for their wasted cunts!

Christine had _never _deserved him!

The cold night air stank of coppery-blood as Raoul brought the finger between his lips, muttering acidly to himself and trying to ignore the steady grunting of the man Christine called her Angel, and the rhythmic slick slap slap slapping of his scrotum against her chin, quietly echoing is the stone streets like a battering ram to Raoul's brain.

Soon a lone couple passed on the sidewalk, oblivious to the scandal of the shadowed tunnel, laughing and canoodling in a manner which further turned the Vicomte's stomach and incited his ire; rolling his eyes emphatically, he called after them in a drippingly sardonic, whispering hiss, "good luck with _that!" _

The lovers shuffled past at an increased speed, crossing the empty street to vanish around the corner of the Garnier, probably thinking they had encountered another drunk aristocrat in the Paris streets; Raoul kicked at the sand staining the cobblestone at his feet, and wished he had never followed Christine.

He wished he had never _seen. _

And yet he could not walk away; unsure what to do with himself, he stared at his scuffed dress pumps, entirely numb, until her cry roused him, and his gaze darted up on an exhale of surprise.

"Erik, I am sorry!" he heard his once-beloved whine––oh, that abominable slut!––as she broke from her Angel's cock, leaving the rigid thing to bob in the shadowed space between them. In the sharded yellow glow of the street-light, Raoul could make out the reflective shine of her spit on the man's naked length, and with a pang of horror, recognized that this _Erik_ had certainly bested him in one department, if not honor. Creamy moisture stained Christine's panting mouth and chin as she gazed up at her patron; she clapped a palm over her lips, shaking her head at him as he loomed overtop. Her spine curled and shuddered as she folded forward and said between her fingers, "please, Erik, how was I to know he would be––"

"Do you think I want to do this to you?" roared her companion, his unearthly voice echoing around the empty square and crawling beneath Raoul's skin, hinting of madness, danger, "you are bound to me, child, and you must face the repercussions of your girlish foolishness!" He had taken up his own cock in his fist; now, like a madman, he flailed the thing against her wincing face and spat, "damn you, you stupid, useless whore. I gave you _everything––" _

"It was only a coincidence!" cried Christine, still sputtering wetly, attempting to belie the mad onslaught of his sex, "please, Erik, Angel––I have not betrayed you! I have no control over what he––"

But the Angel gripped her by her hair and dragged her, too-roughly, again to the crux of him, such that Christine's shoulder struck the iron grate like a bell; Raoul heard his obscene groan as Christine choked on her words to swallow him again, clawing her streetlit fingertips into his trouser-fronts. She seemed to have surrendered to his handling of her; now the man dug his gloved fingers deeper into her curls, forcing himself against the shining, ruddy plumpness of her cheeks, again and again, pounding his cruel pleasure between her lips, as Raoul looked on in impotent horror.

Is this what Christine, the sweet girl of his youth, who had teased him with dry kisses in the hot attic of her father's seaside home, wanted from her men? Violence, humiliation, from a spectre she claimed to admire, in the filthy backalleys of the grand place she adored?

And this, this––whatever _this _was––is this why she refused him, a damned _Vicomte!, _when he had only ever treated her as a respectable woman, and not the easy score his brother claimed she surely was? How could she prefer this brutality, to his flowers, kind words, and innocent, amicable touch?

He should have known the truth of it, when she told him, breathlessly and rosy-cheeked, that she was bound to her Maestro. That she could not love her childhood friend, not anymore, because she belonged to another––

But Raoul could never have used her as this _Erik _was now. Raoul could never force Christine Daae, that perfect, impoverished Angel of the French countryside, to her knees before him, to take him like he had paid her in coins. He could never strike her, raise his voice to her in anger, he could never treat her like her Angel did.

And yet. He hated the feelings the spectacle ignited in him. Mindlessly, Raoul trailed a palm down the front of his trousers, over the bulge of his sex; he could not look away. He stared at the steady bobbing of Christine's yellow curls against the stranger's groin as if he were a man hypnotized; what if it were him, who felt the warmth of her lips on him now?

It was mesmerizing, the way the foul thing slid between her lips, barely illuminated in the flickering streetlight. She opened her mouth wide, almost as if she were singing an aria, taking it inside again and again, swallowing the stranger's cock almost as if she hungered for it––God, she was beautiful. Once or twice it slid from between her lips and she recoiled, gagging and sputtering onto the cobblestones like the street-trash that she had proven herself to be. Still, the villain's cock beat against her wincing face, as his shadowed testicles ruddied her cheeks; Raoul nodded, absently, vigorously, as the stranger grunted out, thrusting against her, "if you behave as a whore, girl, you shall be treated as one," adding, as Christine gave a suffocated groan that nauseated Raoul for its wetness, "you will not ignore my commands again!"

He could see her mouthing soundless words, shuddering her golden curls as she shook her head. She brought both hands before her, clasping the fingers against the front of the man towering over her like a shadow in a supplicative gesture; bowing her head, as strings of liquid hung from her trembling pink chin, sparkling in the amber glow of the gas lights.

"Erik, if you love me!" she wailed, digging her fingertips into his trouser-fronts, kissing the hand that had released her curls to slide heavily over her cheek and trace her drooling mouth, as his cock rubbed at her ruddy chin, "Erik, I beg of you, it is done!"

"It's this or your cunt, Christine, and I shall not be gentle about it," he growled, looming overtop. "Would you prefer I ravished you?"

"You wouldn't!" she hissed, glaring up at him with a fire in her blue eyes that Raoul could feel the heat of even from his hiding-place, "would you behave as the monster you appear to be, under there?"

For an instant, there was perfect silence. As if the city had sucked in a shuddering breath and held it, Raoul felt the oppressive pressure all around; it stopped his breath and stilled his heart, and then:

"Insufferable child!" roared the Angel, as he loosed his flailing cock to strike Christine across the cheek; she recoiled, coughing and sputtering, as his palm again struck her open, gasping mouth, and Christine stumbled, sobbing, her wet knees scrambling on the ground.

When Erik took up his cock again to violently stuff himself again inside, driving himself within her crying mouth by both gloved hands gripping her cheeks, Raoul cried out at the shock of the vision, and dove behind the iron pedestal.

What had he seen? His fingers slid, absently, over his rigid length, his dampened trousers, even as his mind reeled with new terror; what was he looking at? What was he watching, truly, happening to Christine?

Why did he like it?

"No, please––" he heard her wail, even with his back to her hiding place, "no more, please––_ help! _" Her cry was silenced in a squeal and a grunt; Raoul thought the Angel must have again taken hold of her hair and pulled.

"Call for help again and I will leave you forever, Christine," he hissed, his voice rancorous and low, as if it sounded directly in Raoul's ear, "is that what you want?"

She whimpered, "no, Angel––"

And then Raoul heard her gag and choke, and the sick, scraping sound of a body sloughing against stone, as that man who was anything but an Angel roared, "then stop struggling, whore!"; and then he was groaning, long and rasping and repulsive, as Christine's timid whimpers dissolved again to wet, slick silence.

Raoul was frozen to the paving stones, shaking against the Morris column. Poor, wretched Christine; he should pity her! Oh, God, he should go to her! His darling Christine, forced into such lewdness by a scurrilous companion––

Was it rape, what the Angel did to her?

No. He could not think it of her; he would not see her so soiled. Clearly, she had welcomed this––that––whatever _that _was, when she rode with a stranger of questionable intent in the Bois. At midnight, as if her companion had picked her up from one of its tree-lined, secretive streets. She must have sold herself the instant she stepped into that carriage, the first time she took her Angel's hand, unless she had given herself––some part of herself––long before.

He lamented the loss of her; Christine had been such a good, good girl.

Now, as Raoul watched, breathless, heartbeat so rare he had lost the count of it in his chest, the stranger took up his cane in both hands, and was now using it to impel Christine forward and against him by the base of her throat, as if she were nothing more than livestock in a sadistic halter, even as her fingers scrambled and beat against his thighs; as he did so he threw his head back, groaning––the sound unseemly, obscene from that off-puttingly glorious instrument of his throat––and a beam of light was finally cast upon his cheek. Black, smooth, too-shiny––Raoul squinted at the strange, inhuman face, struggling to make sense of what he saw.

Christine's Angel wore a mask.

The numbing horror the realization ignited in him was worse than anything he had so far seen; worse than Christine's scandalous midnight outing, much worse than her taking a brutish man on her knees in a shadowed sewage vestibule behind the opera house.

A man in a mask was a villain. A devil, a fiend––

Who was this masked Erik, and what was he doing to his darling Christine!

He would save her, rescue her! Free her from the influence of this demon!

No––

Because if he went to her now, she would know he had seen. She would know he had seen all of it, and done nothing. That he had let––this––happen to her, whatever it was.

A falling knife has no handle, after all. Sometimes it is better to simply pick up what remains of the thing, rather than incriminate yourself by diving in. And he was in no position to fight. Raoul would have his revenge and hers; on a playing field that he knew he could win, he would entangle the Angel, somehow, in time.

And sweet, naive, trusting Christine could benefit from a lesson such as this. She should have heeded him when he warned her that this Angel was a dangerous character, that his intentions were not so good as he had made them out to be. Raoul wondered, watching the woman's skull strike the tunnel wall behind her with a thud and a wet groan, impelled backwards by the relentless grunting thrusts of her so-called _good genius, _as she sputtered and whimpered into his assault, pale fingers flailing at his open cloak and the bars of her filthy cage––did she think to herself now, with her yellow curls tangled about her shoulders and hot tears streaming down her pretty, pink cheeks, _I should have listened to Raoul. _

Part of him thought she deserved it, for behaving as foolishly as she had.

Part of him was glad.

Now he groaned, gently, surprising himself with the salacious utterance, and was swiftly drawn back from his acrid reverie; and there, in the grip of his sweating, trembling fist, he realized he held his cock, pulsating and naked within the folds of his half-opened trousers. Creamy liquid stained the tips of his fingers as he pumped the thing steadily in his mindless fist.

And he didn't stop, even when Christine cried out, raggedly, "he will not let you get away with this! He will have your head, Erik, for treating me thusly!"

"You will tell your good Vicomte what you have done?" he hissed, and there was a certain self-satisfaction evident in that callous, beautiful voice, even as he added, "_ fuck _––for you are so very skilled at it––"

Christine gave no reply; Raoul noted, increasing the severity of his frantic self-flagellation, that her grip had slackened against her tormentor's thighs. Now her pale hands stroked him, slowly, steadily, easing the fingers between his thighs and into the cleft of his rear.

"No… for all your whimpering, I think you like this, don't you, little slut," came the Angel's hated voice from the shadows, as Raoul nodded absently, panting softly in time with each steady thrust into his beloved's throat, with each merciless pull from his own trembling fingers. "Tell your Erik how much you like it, Christine."

Erik must have freed her enough to speak; now Christine coughed out, "yes, Angel," before he forced his red length again inside.

Bracing himself against the morris column with one sweating fist, watching the thick, ruddy flesh glide between those beautiful lips, Raoul echoed, breathless, rasping: "filthy, fucking opera whore, you know you like it––"

"Tell me it's only me you want, Christine," growled the villain, his words measured, ragged, hinting of violence. "Tell me how wet your cunt gets for your Angel. Tell me it was _never _him––"

"I want this," she breathed, "I want you, only you––"

"Take it––" said the Angel.

_"Take it––" _said Raoul.

Christine had gone limp against the wall of the vestibule, legs splayed; her fingers coiled in the cast iron grate and clawed at the back of her Angel's thigh, as fat, shimmering tears glistened on her red cheeks in the pale lamp-light. The unholy villian had let his cane fall against the paving stones with a clatter; now Christine winced with his every pump as Erik leaned both palms against the stone wall above her tangled head, easing himself within her, slower now, deeper, dragging himself from her mouth with every thrust, fucking her, fucking her, burying himself in her working throat such that drool sparkled against her lips and in slick, sticky trails to the deep-purple head of her assailant's dripping cock; and then, as Christine retched and sputtered, begging, sobbing between his choking invasions, "Erik, no more––Erik, please stop––" he kicked her, hard enough to force Raoul's groan, and when Christine buckled forward, opening her mouth wide in an anguished cry, he took up her quivering jaw in a gloved fist and eased himself back inside.

"Will you ever disobey me again, Christine?" he panted, wrapping his fingers about the root of his shaft and drawing it again from between her gasping lips. He struck the purple head against her chin, her tongue, crushed the clay of it against her skin. "Will you dare to make a fool of me?"

"Never," promised Christine, and spat. Her blue eyes captured the yellow lamplight as she gazed up at him looming overtop, pumping his length against her quivering bottom lip as she held her mouth open for him; tongue lapping at the shining fluid drooling from his swollen cock-tip, she added in a ragged breath, "never, Erik, never––"

And Raoul was pumping his own length, viciously, ferociously in one fist, staring at Christine's open, wanting mouth, even as the Angel did the same; groaning, Raoul buckled against the cast iron column at his side, his own mouth wide in ecstasy, in horror, lost to the look in his fallen beloved's eyes––why did she look at him like that? Erik struck his shaft once, twice, against Christine's eager mouth, and then, folding over against her such that he crushed her crumpled body to the wall, he groaned, long and low and obscene, as sticky fluid spluttered from between his white fingers, in spasm after spasm of sick ecstasy, staining the neckline of Christine's torn dress, her pale throat, her tear-stained cheeks and ruddy chin; and when it fell between her lips and onto her outstretched tongue, she moaned, and worked her open throat to swallow it all, baring her white teeth in a grisly smile as Raoul's own foul seed splattered over the twilit cobblestones at his feet like a maid pouring out a chamber pot.

Christine crumpled to the floor of the stone passageway, sobbing, her face obscured by her own clawing fingers, as her sweat and sick dampened curls stuck to her cheeks, her throat and her lips. Above her, Erik panted, chest heaving as he leaned bodily against the wall of the tunnel, bracing himself against the stones by his leather forehead and forearms, as his limp cock hung wetly between them, a sack of soft clay slowly dripping into Christine's sodden curls.

Raoul stared at the woman he loved, crying in her prison.

He stared at the wet stain of his seed soaking into the paving stones.

Presently he turned and vomited into the street.

And then, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, ruining his dress-coat, he let his weight fall with an echoing thud against the side of the sturdy morris column, and raised his eyes to meet those of the evil Angel, watching him through the bars from behind his black mask.

"Christine, start on down the path," hissed the villain, without freeing the trembling, spent Vicomte from his unreadable gaze. Like a weapon, his red cock hung against his thigh, still wet with her; Raoul wished he would put the horrible thing away.

"Erik, it's dark," she breathed, already swallowed in lightless black, "I do not know the way alone!" When she did not begin to move, to rise from her panting heap against the stones, the Angel kicked out at her, just enough to force her cry and hasten her feet; Raoul flinched at the dull thud of leather sole striking bone.

"Go!" Erik roared, still staring, as Raoul felt the bile again begin to rise, the dizzying tumult spark light behind his eyes, "do not turn around, do you hear me? _Go! _"

Raoul could not stop his feet as he thrust himself, bodily, from the shelter of the morris column; he stumbled across the avenue, feeling the spent waste of his cock as it bobbed, naked against his thigh. The evil Angel summoned him with his glowing stare, and Raoul did not dare to look away. Part of him wished a carriage would run him down, crush him to rotten pulp in the street, and yet he was spared; soon, though he could not identify the moment he had done so, he had his shaking fingers coiled in the bars of the Angel's iron cage.

"Good Evening, Vicomte," Erik said.

Raoul's mind was reeling, as new nausea twisted his bowels; he could not meet the villain's stare. "Christine," he spluttered out, finally, too-late and much too low for her to hear. He could hear her stumbling, unseen, down the passageway beyond; her wet heels clicked unsteadily against the cobblestone, her sobs echoed in the dark. Erik eyed Raoul curiously, his gloved fingers working between them, tucking his spent sex into his fly and carefully neatening his trousers.

"Why did you follow?" he said, after several moments spent in pregnant silence, adding, like another knife to Raoul's churning gut: "you must have seen what I did, and yet you failed to call out or come for her. Why is that?"

Raoul sputtered, noticing the uncanny glow of the Angel's eyes as they flashed behind the dark holes of the mask. "I love her!" he stammered, and the yellow eyes narrowed.

"You love her?" mused his enemy, though something shadowed his shrouded features and was swiftly gone, "I love her too…"

"Then what have you done to her?" Raoul breathed, fully aware of his nakedness as it brushed the cold iron of the sewer grate. He shoved his flaccid sex into his fly, clumsily doing up the buttons, adding distractedly, "you cannot love her! _I _love her! And I would never!"

"Are you so sure?" said Erik in a low voice. He bent to retrieve his cane from the floor at his feet and Raoul was struck by the grace of his movement; now he wiped the drying semen from its laminated onyx shaft with a handkerchief, and fixed a bored eye on Raoul. "All men are only animals, beneath our masks, Vicomte… are we not?"

The comment unguarded him; Raoul coughed, attempting to settle his racing thoughts, the rising bile of his growing shame. But he could not hold back the ravage of emotion; soon he was shouting into the alien face of the monster before him, as that yellow stare looked calmly on.

"Erik!" demanded Raoul, spittle flying madly against the iron bars as he shook them in his two fists. "If that is your name! I have found you out for a villian, and one day soon, I will best you! You shall not get away with this!"

The glowing eyes slid over Raoul, the tracks of his tears, the vomit on his chin. The crusted stain of his own seed, dribbling down the length of his trouser leg and wetting his fingers as they curled into the cast iron bars. There was semen on his shoe, glimmering as it caught the yellow lamp light; beneath the stranger's judicious eye, Raoul scraped at the mess with his opposite foot.

"You call me a villain, Monsieur?" said the Angel, softly, raising his gaze to again meet Raoul's frantic stare. He sighed. "Could I not say the same of you?"

And then he tipped his hat, turned again to the long corridor behind the grate, and was swallowed in black.

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ I'm sorry for what I've put them through this time... I'll have to make it up to them. ;)_

_As always, thank you for reading! If you read to the end, __**please leave a comment or review! **__Your words feed my soul and make me write faster (and sometimes, at all!) I try my best to respond to every one (If there is something you want to chat with me about, catch me on Ao3 or Tumblr, where I am admittedly more active!)_

_Until next time,_

_Cat_


	3. Nocturnes No 3: SAINT VALENTINE

_**Saint Valentine**__ by catcorsair_

_This is a very dark story, albeit surreal and fairly atmospheric, and not graphic. Proceed at your own risk._

**_Thank you for reading! Please review :)_**

* * *

Blood dries on the inside of her thigh from where he took her, gently, atop the lace duvet of the soft bed he has laid for her. She aches from the marriage, but her heart is bursting––

Because he loves her. He loves her so much, she thinks he would die to prove it.

"The mob will come," he says, mouth hot against her bare skin. His lips are on her nipples and in the hollow of her throat; his fingers move between her thighs. "You have to go."

"No," she offers, though she knows that she must. She has seen the mob before, during the terror of 1871. With Papa Daae's hand sweating in her own, she ran, hearing gunshots break the screaming silence, hearing bodies fall behind her. She watched children, young as she was then, trampled in the streets.

She knows to fear the mob.

"No," she says again, though her mouth is dry and her speech comes rasping. She hopes he cannot hear the betrayal on her tongue. "I have made you a promise, husband." This word settles like a lump in her throat. "Now, I must keep it."

He looks at her, mismatched eyes searching. Christine lowers her own as the heat rises in her naked breast. His body is bare before her, sprawled atop the disordered linens; scars run the length of his corpse's chest, his cock hangs, half-limp and long against his thigh. He bears the stain of her on his shaft and in the wet curls about his sex; her blood is brown on the bedsheets.

"The Daroga will have told them where you are," he says. She can see his pulse thrumming beneath his transparent skin and as it floods between his thighs, making a weapon of the still-wet thing against his thigh. When he climbs overtop her, the weight of it settles on her naked stomach, wet and heavy as it slinks against her skin. "They will come for you," he tells her, though his yellow eyes speak other words. "We must go, Christine."

But they do not rise from the bed. Erik runs a finger over her lip.

His naked face shows too many expressions; she cannot identify them. There are lines in the rot of his skin that deepen as he breathes against her mouth, "they cannot take you from me, Christine. You are forever mine."

Again, he enters her. She closes her eyes and turns her head as he moves against her, but when he finishes, she holds him close, feeling the tremors move through him like a current, feeling his muscles tense, then relax, as he sags atop her. She brushes her lips over the transparent flesh of his forehead. His tears are warm against her naked breasts.

And she sings to him, softly, her lips brushing the ruin of his naked forehead, her fingertips trailing down his spine. Soon his breath grows heavy, his heartbeat, steady in his hollow chest. His penis is limp, like wet clay against her belly as he curls around her, protecting, imprisoning; Christine wonders if the churning in her stomach is the beginnings of life.

She prays that it is not.

Later, she is awoken first: there is splashing, shouting, coming from the shores of the underground lake, echoing into the stone chamber where their disheveled bed is unmade, where their bodies lay twisted and conjoined in the golden candlelight. She does nothing, only listening, as she traces his scars with her fingertips; she knows the mob has come.

"Sooner than expected," Erik hisses, waking. "Christine, it is time." Suddenly urgent, he climbs from overtop her, pulling on his wrinkled trousers as he moves. His shirt hangs over the chair where he had tossed it as he said their marriage vows; he throws it over his corpse's head, hiding the scars and burns from her gaze.

Now he looks at her, yellow eyes bright and shining like glass in the horror of that face.

Horror.

"You must take the path to the furnaces, Christine, now," he tells her, his terrible mouth set in a hard line. "From there, I will find you."

He is gathering things in his too-long fingers, throwing items into a satchel he has pulled from beneath the bed, as Christine watches, frozen on her feet. The muscles of his back move and shudder beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. From behind, he looks as if he were already dead; thoughtlessly, Christine raises a palm to touch the sharp ridges of his spine.

"Run!" he roars, turning to face her. His eyes are wide as she curls her fingers again into her fist. There is pain in his voice and in his stare. "Stupid girl, what are you waiting for?"

Because they are here. First one, then several: brandishing torches and lamps, their shadows stalking on the walls as they infiltrate the living room, like so many spirits rising from the graveyard of the black lake.

"Out the back, Christine," Erik hisses. A red cord is held taut and ready between his white fists. "You know the way." Then his eyes meet hers and they are not urgent, not fierce; he is looking as he once looked, the same way he looked at her, that first night so long ago, when he took both her hands in his and begged her forgiveness for the Angel's lie––

The same way he looked at her, only hours ago, as he pressed his lips to her forehead, and the scorpion fell from her numb fingers.

The same way he looked at her as he tore into her flesh.

"I will never, never leave you alone," he says, reaching out to touch her chin. "Remember that, Christine. You are mine." Then, with the barest nod, he turns, and is gone.

But the delay has been too great; already, there are too many intruders to escape. In the hall, Erik shouts as they take hold of him; Christine can see his capture reflected in the shadows dancing on the bedroom wall.

Still, she follows him. Her nightdress sweeps over her bare feet as she walks down the hall, pandemonium growing and enclosing with every step. She knows she walks into Hell.

"Erik," she whispers, calling to him through the noise. "Erik!" He has broken from his captors. Bodies litter the floor at his feet; a heavy man struggles against a red chord at his throat, as Erik wrestles him against his chest. He stiffens, turns; his eyes go wide as the body falls and he breathes her name:

"Christine!"

In turning back, he has damned himself. Two men take hold of one arm, three take the other. Christine's lip is twisted in what feels like a smile; Erik frowns, yellow eyes staring, even as he is ushered through the jeering crowd.

Now Christine is consumed by the energy of his capture; men leer at his naked face even as they beat him, tear at him, force him to his knees. The grand organ at the far end of the living room is set upon and rent apart, its innards snapping and ringing like the bells of Hell as axes and pikes assault its mahogany belly; the violin, the cello, are left in splinters against the wall. In her absorption Christine does not heed them turning on her, the wandering ghost in her nightclothes, the only stagnant form amid the chaos of destruction.

"The whore rises from the monster's bed!" someone shouts, pointing, then another, brandishing high a burning pike: "she has conspired with the Devil for her fame!" Large hands grip her by the arm, tearing her clothes in their fury; long fingernails hold her by the waist, clawing beneath the straining fabric. The heat of a torch threatens her skin, as the light is shoved close; leering faces, some she knows, some who are strangers, are illuminated behind it.

"She is no virgin," chides another, and Christine winces at the hot sour of his spit on her cheek. Hands: too many to count, tear at her petticoat, her chemise. Her back is cold; she is pressed to the cold stone of the unlit hearth. She feels the familiar loose stone against her spine, the favorite she has run her fingers overtop on so many lonely nights, weathered smooth, and it is a comfort, as a knee is forced between hers. Somewhere that she cannot see, Erik is calling her name.

"She gives her cunt to Satan, willingly!" the jeering continues, to a round of unruly cheers as the buttons are torn from her nightgown. This one's face she knows, if not his name; though now his familiar eyes are bright with something more than hatred. "Look at her in all her glory! Our own Salome!"

And then quieter, such that only she can hear it among the clamour all around them, as hot fingers cup the curve of her half-bare breast, he adds: "I always did hold a shine to you, Miss Daae. Who would have guessed you would fall so low?"

Erik is shouting; his awesome voice echoes in the stone chamber, raw, feral, like an animal's before the pike. He is saying her name, and she clings to it, if only for something to hear. Through the crowd, like the parting of the Nile, she captures his gaze; tears are pouring from his rabbit's eyes. Now her thighs are spread wide, as a body presses against hers, as a thousand bodies hold her down, whispering, hissing at her, and still, he is shouting:

"Leave the girl, you have what you came for!"

His cries are met with raucous taunting. Fingers pry between her spread legs; men's fingers, hot and fat and rough. Others laugh, as a pair of trousers drops to the floor aside her scrambling feet. Then, a man's voice, cruel, as it hisses in her ear, "how foul must a woman be to fuck the Devil, girl?"

She has no answer to give.

"Christine, fight them!" she hears him, and the sound is desperate, agonized, breathless; Erik is struggling. "Damn you, fight them!"

Why? she wants to say. How is this any different?

One captor or another. One monster, traded for another.

She tells him with her eyes, instead, as hands grip about her throat, and her esteemed voice is smothered in insensate fists. The heavy heat of a soft stomach beats against her front, a wet mouth sour atop her lips, as more hands stroke her, touch her, tear at her, and endless voices scream and chant all around:

"how was Satan's cock, filthy whore?"

"feel how wet she is, the slut––"

"not so pretty now that you're off that stage, are you?"

"you're the Devil's bitch, and now you're mine––"

Her vision dances as her body is rocked against another, then another, and yet she can feel the curling of her lip as a smile paints her drawn lips. Because now, Erik understands, and as he is looking, and she can see it reflected in his yellow eyes.

When a hand clasps over her mouth, shoving its salted fingers between her lips, she knows she is still smiling underneath.

"Animals!" Erik shouts, as his awesome voice cracks, "damn you, disgusting, unnatural fools! Unhand me! Can you not see what you do?" But there are hundreds of bodies between them, thousands, and endless stew of faceless flesh. Erik is sobbing; Christine has heard it often enough to recognize the sound, even with her eyes closed shut, even with a stranger's hot breath in her ear. "Christine, hear me!––And you call me a beast?"

"Is that your bride?" one hisses, as his palm meets his Erik's cheek, though the sound is dull and lifeless behind the slapping strike of her own body against another's, again, again––

"Please," says Erik, and it is the most pathetic sound Christine has ever heard, "I love her––"

A crack, a grunt, a cheer, and barking rounds of laughter: when Erik next shouts, his words are thick and wet with blood. Hot liquid slips down Christine's bare calves to stain the floor at her feet.

And then there is a crash, as the sound of bullets striking stone echoes through the underground cavern. Grown men shout and flounder as dust and rock crumble into the crowd. Against Christine, a body grips her tighter by the biceps and grunts into her ear.

"To the police, I told you!" roars a man, tall, brandishing a dueling pistol above his head. His red astrakhan cap is like a beacon in the dark room; Christine remembers him from some place, some time that feels so long ago. His dark eyes sweep the space as he fires again into the stone ceiling. "Only the police! You are not vigilantes, but men!"

"Daroga!" Erik shouts, his voice strained as it rises above the sea of sound, "free her! _Free her! _"

Then a shot, as a body falls, hard on the floor, as the dark man roars, his heavily-accented words thick with hate, "disgusting beasts! How _dare _you! This is not justice!" Men shout and scatter, as Christine senses the air around her thinning, as cold, stone-smelling oxygen fills her nostrils, instead of the stink of flesh. Another gunshot breaks the cacophony; she gives a cry as hot blood spatters her lips and cheeks, and the body against her stills and slumps gracelessly to the ground. She stifles a laugh; at her feet, his trousers tangle about his ankles, as a pool of red slowly spreads from the empty socket of one wide open eye.

"Go!" hisses the Daroga, as Christine watches the blood pool between her bare toes. He takes a hold of her bicep and shakes her until she meets his dark eyes. Eyes like the haunted forests of Scandinavia, in the living, breathing dead of night. "Run, Miss Daae. You cannot save him now."

Her mouth tastes of copper; she licks her lips. "I do not want to save him," she tells the man with the deep-forest eyes. He frowns and touches her cheek.

"Sweet girl," he says, and his words sound almost like an apology, "then you are free."

Another shot: Christine watches the body fall without seeing. "_ Go! _" The Daroga brandishes his pistol beside her at the enclosing crowd, clearing a path through bedlam.

They will find Raoul, she tells herself, as she slips behind a shouting man, then another, forgotten amid the mounting chaos, making her way to the path she knows will lead her outside unseen. Wherever he has hidden him away, he will be found.

She remembers his still, cold body laid out on the floor of this very living room, after Erik had dragged him from the water. As Christine traced the half-parted swell of his full, blue lips, Erik pulled her to standing by the wrist and swore he was only sleeping.

And then he kissed her, and called her his wife.

Hidden behind the iron grate of the secret retreat, the air is thick with the taste of metal. Cold water laps at her ankles; there is no current, no tide. More are crossing the water. More are coming for Erik.

Christine knows what they will do.

His eyes are searching, seeking her in the shadows. She has never seen him look so frantic; she has never seen him afraid. "Husband," she whispers, behind the metal bars, and now the word does not feel like a prison, "husband, look for me."

When his eyes capture hers beyond the grate there is relief there.

She can see his ruined lips forming the words. "I am sorry," he tells her, and now she can hear him in her ear; hear him in her mind, as clearly as she ever has. She is sure she always will.

At the center of the crowd, he is on his knees. Four men, more, bind him to the ground, though he does not appear to fight them. Another stands behind him, holding a chord taut about his throat. To one side, a young man wields an axe high in two white fists. Erik looks at none of them; his eyes are fixed only on Christine. He is begging, quietly, as his shirt is torn, and his arms are bound behind his back:

"Forgive me, Christine."

Again the mob closes in around him; as she watches, he grunts and staggers when the first stone strikes him, and yet he does not take his yellow eyes off of hers.

"I didn't know, Christine," he is repeating, even as a second collides with his side, then another, then a barrage of brutal rock, "I didn't know––"

A woman breaks from the crowd, and Erik's gaze shifts away to meet hers. There is understanding in that stare, as his head sags slightly on his shoulders; she advances, brandishing her torch before his naked face, as the jeering mass settles in around her, like predators, circling––

"I am Hortense Buquet," she says. Tears shine on the fat of her soft, wrinkled cheeks as she raises the sword of her torch; Erik nods. She gives a cry, and shoves the fire against his bare chest. The churning in Christine's belly feels like power.

There on the carpet, Erik is screaming, and somehow the sound is still musical, still divine; his fingers coil in tight fists as he beats them against the ground. Christine can see every muscle fighting beneath the torn remains of his clothes as the flames lick at the front of him; there is more life in that transparent skin than Christine has ever seen before, as it glows orange, then red, then black––

Buquet flings the torch onto the ground; it sputters and goes out. She falls to her knees, wailing, her hands above her eyes. Even from her hiding place, Christine can smell the nauseating odor of burnt flesh.

But it is only another mark, another scar upon that inhuman body. Erik's head is lowered, as his ravaged chest shudders with each rasping breath. When he lifts his head, there is new water in his yellow stare:

His Angel's eyes. Christine feels as if they are already watching from above.

"I love you," he whispers. These are his last words; Christine cannot return them.

And she cannot run. Not yet. Not until it is finished. Not until she has seen––

The Daroga is the only one shouting now, his wailing curses suffocated in the cheers and terrible laughter of the mob, as the young man at Erik's side raises his axe high before him, and the crowd closes in, blocking her view. The last Christine sees of him are his yellow eyes, searching, pleading, loving, loving––

And then they are holding his head in the air. It is a trophy; it is proof of the slain beast. It is Lucifer with his hundred searing eyes of flame, torn down by Michael on high. Christine watches his ugly head as it is passed from hand to bloodied hand, as legion clutch and grope and grab at the ruin of him, at his monster's face, digging their fingers into his twisted cheek and lopsided brow, painting his broken lip red with his blood. The Daroga is on his knees, his pistol abandoned at his side, as he covers his face in his hands and the revelers dance and cheer all around him; as Erik's head tumbles and swings in merry celebration, still his yellow eyes are fixed on Christine.

Erik is dead. But Angels cannot die.

And Christine will be free.

* * *

**_A/N_**_: Saint Valentine?! But that's a romantic story! _

_Yes and No. The saint was (rather brutally) martyred in the name of romantic freedom from repression; aka: he died, allowing others to live the life of their choosing. Saint Valentine is remembered for performing illegal marriage ceremonies in Rome (and France, and so on––apparently there were several Saint Valentines) during a period in which the Emperor Claudius the Cruel (a man possessing zero chill or perhaps, far too much) had outlawed weddings and monogamous love. _

_When it was discovered that he was performing illegal marriages, Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off, and for that decapitated head to be paraded through the streets. (Incidentally, all on February 14 ~240AD: how romantic!) _

_Later, Saint Valentine's day––a holiday celebrating monogamous and pious love––replaced the earlier pagan festival, the Feast of Lupercalia, in which men drew women's names at random from a box over the course of an evening (for a guaranteed good time) in 496 AD by Pope Gelasius, who had apparently had it up to here with all that group fornication. I know a gang rape like... isn't the same thing as a sweet orgy _at all _, but leave me alone, I'm trying to draw ties here. _

_Thank you for reading, and for following along with this anthology. I am having a swell time. _**_Please leave a comment/review_****_ to let me know what you think, or just that you appreciate what I do!_**_I try to respond to every one. _

_-Cat_


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